


The Millennium Deal - One: Exiles

by Cara_Loup



Series: The Millennium Deal [2]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Adventure, Friendship/Love, M/M, Mystery, Romance, Telepathic Bond, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5384390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cara_Loup/pseuds/Cara_Loup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I know he’s alive.” It was all Luke could offer, if not explain. “But that’s all.”<br/>“Well, that’s <i>something</i>.” Lando’s grin was tailored to reassure. “Something to keep us from worrying about that cussed fool of a Corellian.”<br/>“He’s got Chewie to keep him out of the worst trouble,” Luke returned what he kept telling himself.<br/>He’d made up his mind months ago. No matter the cost, he had to wait and respect Han’s freedom of choice. But the loss had started to twist like a splinter in an old injury.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Millennium Deal - One: Exiles

**One: Exiles**  


“I miss him.”

The rustle of printouts on Leia’s desk ceased. For a few moments, only the ventilator’s soft whirr moved through her office. Like a quirk in a patterned flow, the words stood out, a flaw within the elaborate routine of days.

Several months ago, it wouldn’t have been such an odd thing to say. Luke felt the window-frame press into his shoulder, the familiar, slight jut of warped wood just above his elbow. Corellian summers were hot, and the lock-slab structure conserved the heat instead of blocking it out. Indiscreet or inconsiderate, he couldn’t have told anyone except Leia.

“Well, it’s nearly impossible not to think of him here,” she returned dryly. “Isn’t it?”

Perhaps she was doing him a favor by reducing the notion to what was obvious. From his place by the window, Luke had the usual view across a jumbled slice of town that framed a ribbon of brackish water. He nodded shortly. When he shifted his weight, he could see the nitrate-silvered canal disappear beneath iron floodgates.

Months after the Alliance had moved headquarters to Corellia, a thoughtless look out through the window still struck home with private irony. Exiles from different corners of the galaxy, they’d all made themselves at home where none of them belonged. But at the time of their arrival, Han was no longer with them.

Sometimes, when he walked through the city, Luke felt as if he was mapping out Han’s stories and anecdotes. Slipping in and out of recognition, marking the gaps between Han’s memories. Entirely impossible, not to think of him here.

“What do you think,” he started without turning, “how much longer?”

“Until what?” she asked softly.

It startled him that she hadn’t followed the same thread of thought. Luke glanced down at a triangle of summer slanting white across his hand on the windowsill. The ventilator distributed slow waves of hot air around the room.

“Until he’s back,” he said. There seemed to be no way of converting the question to something innocent or neutral.

“I don’t think anyone can predict that,” Leia answered, the words spaced out with consideration.

They could have left it at that and resumed companionable silence, secure in the assumption of a shared loss. Until Leia asked, “Is that what he told you? That he’d be back eventually?”

The small shock traveled all the way through his body and brought Luke around to face her.

Some things went without saying, and the events that preceded Han’s departure had been surrounded by careful rituals of privacy. Without having to mention it, they both knew that Han had talked to each of them alone, giving his reasons and his awkward, angry excuses.

“He said he _might_ be back,” Luke qualified.

Leia pulled up her shoulders. “What I heard was, ‘don’t expect to see me again.’ Or something to that effect.”

A peculiar stillness had taken hold on her face, like a safeguard against memory, and the notion of a shared loss came apart just as quietly.

“Maybe he wanted to spare me,” Luke offered. “Make it easier for me to accept.” And it almost rang true.

“Maybe,” Leia agreed, no credence in the tiny smile she gave him.

She’d always closed herself on inevitable grief and loneliness — perhaps, Luke thought now, for that very same reason. To spare him the added weight of sympathy and concern. But it also kept him wondering how much Han had meant to her.

What he recalled were the countless symptoms of their arguments behind closed doors, the dependable cycles of reunions and heated disagreements that mostly faltered in his presence. Neither Leia nor Han wanted to push him towards taking sides, not even accidentally. With him, they’d eased back into an older constellation, a fairly balanced triangle with ties strong enough to weather any storm.

Later on, when the prospect of permanence had already fallen to pieces, Luke realized that all his offhand remarks about an impending marriage had been expertly defused. As if Han and Leia had worried more about excluding him from their future than including each other in it. Unless that, too, was what they’d wanted him to think.

“It’s okay,” Leia said, before the silence between them could grow uncomfortable. “We knew it wasn’t working before Han left.”

The end of their relationship had been far from spectacular, the unceremonious conclusion of a highly public romance that lingered on all the comnets for weeks after the fact. With the deftness of conspirators, Han and Leia had moved on quietly into separate lives. They hadn’t told Luke outright — either to minimize the impact of change, or counting on him to read the news off their faces. But he hadn’t. It was Han’s obsessive tinkering with the Falcon’s systems that alerted him first. Unrest becoming more pronounced while Han still wrestled with the pressures of his rank and duties.

A small, incurable bitterness coiled in Luke’s chest at the memory. As if Han’s absence could, after all this time, still surprise him with a sense of isolation for which he knew no solid reason. It was just that he missed the easy closeness, the way he could let control and circumspection slip, and count on Han to give him upfront answers.

“It’s entirely possible that you’re right, you know,” Leia said, extending the words like a courtesy. “He might just need some time and distance to discover a convincing reason why he should rejoin us.”

Her tone proposed a return to the day’s agenda, and Luke complied by taking the chair opposite her desk. It was an extravagant piece of furniture, carved ironwood combined with wickerwork, salvaged from the Imperial Governor’s palace on Corellia, the better part of which had gone up in revolutionary fires. But the Governor had appropriated much from the old Guild House, and the chair preserved its conglomerate history in scratches and minor singe-marks.

Luke curled his fingers around an ichthyoid head that decorated the armrest, forcing composure into his thoughts. “You wanted to discuss preparations for the conference with me.”

“That, too.” Leia pulled a pale green foil from the sheaves on her desk. “And Intell’s latest report. We’ve heard a lot of rumors about the syndicate operating in the Iridys sector. It seems they’ve extended their activities as far as Dantooine. Of course that’s almost too distant to be of any concern to us...”

“But we can’t let the Rimworlds slide into lawlessness,” Luke echoed an official credo that happened to match his own beliefs. “If there’s any reason for these people to support a New Republic, it’s the hope for a functional system of justice.”

“And we _will_ achieve this much.” Leia handed him the foil on a decoding tray that highlighted the relevant text within garbled columns. “For the time being, there’s not a lot we can do about it, but the syndicate’s operations are beginning to interfere with export from a number of worlds that belong to the Sullustian Hegemony.”

“They’re slavers...” Luke skimmed the catalog of stockpiled allegations. “They ship spice and weapons throughout the Rim territories.”

“Anything illegal and profitable,” Leia confirmed. “Apparently, they’re far more successful than any of the Hutt outfits used to be. But of course their illegal activities don’t bother our friends on Sullust as much as the way they’re undercutting the market for vinesilk and latinum.”

Luke slid the tray back across her desk, discarding frustration with the gesture. The first maxim of political pragmatism ruled that any convergence of economic and moral priorities was purely accidental. Repeating his reservations was as pointless as preaching the value of biocontrolled crops to Tatooine’s moisture farmers. “What does Intell propose to do about it?” he asked instead. “Dispatch field agents to learn more about their internal organization and contacts?”

Leia shook her head. “I don’t think that’s an option right now. But we have a very reliable source in the sector. Someone who’s keeping both eyes on the syndicate. Out of personal business interests, it would appear.” She picked up the foil and sailed it into an open drawer. “Now, the conference...”

“You’d like me to approach Admiral Ackbar in private,” Luke guessed. “Before any of the final arrangements are made.”

“Yes, that would be helpful. Ackbar’s influence is considerable, and if he adopts our point of view, chances are that all of the Mon Cal worlds will follow.”

Shortly after the Coruscant disaster, the Mon Calamarians had limited their involvement with the nascent Republic to something colloquially labeled a fringe membership. Though they continued to provide vehicles and technology, their ruling council monitored Alliance policies carefully. The recent display of martial expansionism, so their bulletin ran, clashed too harshly with Mon Calamari beliefs.

“They’re worried about the Corellians,” Leia continued, “about their mistrust of centralized governments, their sectarianism, and the vindictive tendencies among some of the clans.”

“I don’t think I can honestly counter those doubts,” Luke said. It was always a stretch, a continuous effort of holding different pressure groups together, instead of letting disintegrative forces run their own course. What they called the New Republic these days was in truth little more than a loose confederation, assembled by chance and diplomatic tenacity. Without Corellian industry, without the enormous capacity of the Corellian shipyards and the expertise of their engineers, that brittle construct could easily fall apart.

“I can only try to convince him that we’ll be better able to control the Corellian faction if there’s an equally strong opposition,” he offered.

His rare attempt at purely tactical reasoning drew a smile from Leia. “Just tell him how you feel about it. Ackbar trusts you, and the Mon Cal honor the memory of the Jedi and their integrity. I’m sure the council delegates would appreciate it if you put in an appearance at the conference.”

“If it helps.” Luke infused his tone with moderate optimism. He’d returned from a string of exacting missions only the day before, and fatigue clung to him like a fog. All his diplomatic assignments were owed to what he represented more than any personal skills; he’d long accepted that as given. Still, at times he caught himself looking on from a distance, with a hollow sense of bewilderment.

“The delegation is scheduled to arrive by the end of this week,” Leia informed him. “Meanwhile, Dodonna and I will think of something that will keep the most querulous clan leaders busy for the duration of the conference.”

“Good luck,” Luke retorted.

For a moment, she eyed him sharply as if he’d let something slip, then she nodded. “You, too.” 

 

He decided to walk across the city. All the upper traffic lanes were crowded at this hour, and the government-owned glider outranked his old landspeeder on Tatooine only by a scant notch. Winds coming in off the sound swept the pedestrian levels with a salty tang. After several weeks of confinement to the sterility of ship’s quarters and conference parlors, he longed to fill his lungs with the raw, aggressive scents.

Luke shifted his shoulders inside the dust-brown jacket, a chance leftover from his old ground uniform that rendered him comfortably indistinct. Not that he needed to worry about causing a commotion here. Most Corellians cultivated an attitude of belligerent disregard for titles and decorations, and he was grateful for the liberty it allowed him. If people recognized him in the streets, they’d spare him a curious glance or a raised eybrow and move on.

The route he chose took him across the canal, into a low-rent district skirting the government precinct, such as it was. Right at the center, the Governor’s burnt-out palace had been scavenged and torn down piecemeal, then left triumphantly to decay, a memorial to liberation.

When the Empire took over, cloudscraping towers had been jammed in to bear witness to the careless arrogance of conquest. As an object lesson, some of the poor quarters had been bulldozed into the ground, and the ancient brick citadel by the harbor had been decapitated, but the city continued its random growth around those fresh scars. For the most part, it was a blithe tangle of manufactories, casinos, bars and convenience stores, sprawling before the asymmetry of tenement blocks and industrial domes.

Behind a squat permacrete complex, Luke could see layered landing platforms blossom like mushrooms. A stock light freighter had just lifted off, performing a circumstantial pirouette as it scaled a polished sky. A YT-1300, the same make as the Falcon, Luke knew at a glance; probably rigged and tuned like most private freighters... And within the space of a breath, his imagination ranged through the Falcon’s crawlways, attempting to second-guess Han’s latest modifications. If he ever got a chance to check up on it, all the changes made aboard the Falcon would give him the most accurate measure of the time spent waiting.

Luke paused to watch after the freighter’s jet-flare, firing white between thready clouds. The late afternoon glare throbbed against his temples.

Predictably, Han had chosen the Falcon for the one formal appointment that Luke recalled. Sitting him down in the passenger lounge, Han had paced back and forth as he talked, short temper caged between the game table and the engineering console.

_Facts are, everybody’s too hot on grand visions, and look where it’s gotten us. Even after Coruscant — hell, you’d think some people’d learn from their mistakes!_

Restricted to the acceleration couch, Luke had offered qualified agreement while tension climbed inside him.

 _You know what they say about a common enemy, Han went on, the way it holds everything together, but chasing Imperials just to keep the fleet busy and hang more decorations on some puffed chest won’t bring back the old times. There’s some things I believe in_... He’d flashed Luke a look of warning at that. _Hell knows I’ve tried to make it work, but for all I can see, this New Republic’s turning into a miserable fiction at lightspeed_.

 _Perhaps you’ve tried too hard_ , Luke meant to say but didn’t. He’d expected Han to quit immediately after the Coruscant attack, and he’d never been so wrong.

Always a misfit among the old-school military, Han had suddenly followed each call of duty with a driven kind of scrupulousness. As if to prove that no success was really worth the cost. Then, from one day to the next, he’d turned in his rank pins and signed his pension claim over to an obscure trust on Corellia.

 _Leia thought I’d fit the general’s mold eventually. That’s what she based things on_. For the first time since he’d started to explain, Han stopped in his tracks. The look he bent on Luke was calm and unsparingly candid. _It’s like I’m constantly trying to live up to something that ain’t me_.

 _Sound familiar?_ Luke asked himself with defensive irony, but anger superseded the notion. No time to feel sorry for himself, when the time to rally objections had already been wasted. Han’s mind was made up, and Luke’s stomach turned to stone as he listened, not once interrupting his friend’s hotheaded monologue.

It confirmed only what he’d known for years. That Han’s life and his freedom were one and the same thing.

A stronger wind had lifted when Luke turned into the old harbor promenade. From a row of dilapidated warehouses, the scent of exotic spices drifted up on a chemical breeze. An antique coastal barge bobbed alongside the pier, solar sail flapping with each toss of the wind, but all he heard was Han’s voice saying, _I need some space, kid. Some time to take a good look at things from outside and figure out what to do about it all. Then I guess I’ll be back_.

No matter how often Luke mulled those words over, they never yielded a note of false comfort. Seven months and two weeks of the Corellian calendar — and how much longer? He quickened his pace, as if that could quell the jab of impatience.

By light of reason, those intervening months could well have transformed Han’s plans. Swept him back into the straightforward thrills of chance, of random discovery and risky gambits. Luke pushed both fists into his pockets. Thoughts like that still tasted of betrayal. Promises from Han had always been a rare occurrence, never offered unless there was a reasonable chance he could keep them, too.

 _Trust me, Luke, I know what I’m doing_. Memory conjured the cynical twist to Han’s mouth, half-concealing a disillusionment that ran far deeper.

And that was why he’d argued, passionately, for the better part of the night. Until Han put a hand on his shoulder, gripping hard. _Just trust me, okay?_

No sarcasm, not a hint of nonchalance this time, just a demand to honor their friendship and let him go.

By the docks, a group of coveralled workers were dismantling one of the vast, spherical containers that had once held fuel for the cargo ships sailing low above the ocean. Large patches of rust stained the steel globe like continents. Cheerfully reckless, the workers climbed all over the scaffolding without netting or safety straps. Their shouts resounded off the metal, striking up deep, humming notes. Perhaps they were shouting only to hear their own voices amplified like this, with an almost musical ring. As he listened to them, Luke felt an absurd twinge of envy.

The sun was hanging low over the citadel, edging its broken top. He turned to windward, into the sober brass shine that flared around maimed turrets, across an empty boulevard, and his chest hollowed. As if his thoughts had skimmed only the surface of some unfathomed, unreasoning want. The wind drove glittering sand across the locktar expanse, and it took his breath without warning.

He’d not foreseen that Corellia would spring reminiscence on him at every turn. That he’d find himself caught to the past like this, alone with a promise no one else had witnessed. Certainly, Leia had wanted to believe him, just as she’d wanted to believe what he’d told her about Anakin Skywalker, with the discriminating, optimistic part of her mind.

Perhaps it was just that the amount of memories he couldn’t exorcise had grown staggering. And Han’s absence seemed to focus a nagging sense of stagnation, a loss of purpose that crept up on him like the chill evening breeze.

Luke turned up his collar and walked on briskly. As always, he had a task set before him, one step at a time. One deep breath swept his mind clear of imponderables, and he drew conviction to him, an infallible shield. It was all he could do.

* * *

Admiral Ackbar’s study was illuminated by an electric chandelier that sprinkled fuzzy lightspots across heavy timber furniture and an elegant data console. After they’d exchanged greetings, Ackbar gestured Luke to a seat by his desk.

“The time of the conference is drawing near,” he said, his voice an amiable bass. “Am I wrong to assume that the pleasure of your visit is owed to that fact?”

“No, you’re right.” Luke relaxed into one of the light rattan chairs. For those who didn’t know him well, Ackbar’s ponderous demeanor usually concealed that he had little patience for diplomatic rituals. “You know what kind of result Leia and Mon Mothma hope for...”

“You realize I can’t speak for the ruling council,” the admiral interjected.

“Of course not. I’ve come to hear your personal opinion.”

Ackbar clasped webbed hands over his midriff and nodded. “Now that I have lived among the Corellians for some time,” he started, “I think I’m beginning to understand their mindset, and how the past affects their sometimes... erratic behavior. Or so at least it appears to us.”

“Corellia has suffered more than most under Imperial rule,” Luke retorted. From enforced labor, conscription and deportation to ruthless exploitation of every natural resource, the Corellian worlds and colonies had been nearly bled dry, each family adding private chapter and verse to a history of loss.

“Their memory is long,” Ackbar said pensively, “and it demands revenge.”

“They’re very loyal. And determined, once they’ve made up their minds about something.”

“Indeed, I’ve heard it said that their skulls are thicker than ours.” A chuckle rumbled from Ackbar’s throat as he tilted his large head. “I am now more confident that we can achieve a constructive cooperation with them. But you must know that my own people consider me a shark rather than a harmless barble-of-the-rivers.”

The image distracted Luke to a short smile. “Yet they’ll listen to you.”

With self-conscious amusement, Ackbar gestured that comment aside. “There is no question that my people believe in the necessity of establishing another Republic,” he said earnestly. “We need a central administration to guard the galactic peace, but its goals should be justice and economic balance, not warfare and technological progress for already privileged systems.”

“I know.” Luke heard the note of regret in his own voice. In theory, every ambitious segment within the Alliance would hasten to advocate sweeping statements such as this, only to consign them to oblivion the moment personal interests were called into question. He’d been too optimistic, too engrossed in abstract ideals — in short, too naive — for the longest time.

“Perhaps we should think of losing Coruscant as a chance to reconsider our priorities. There are only Imperial splinter groups left now, all of them entrenched in their separate territories. That war is over.” Ackbar’s bright eyes seemed to cloud fractionally, then his pupils swiveled, announcing that his mind had shifted direction.

“There is something else that concerns my people greatly,” he said after a moment. “The future of the Jedi knights...”

Of course. Luke felt his backbone stiffen with the uneasy anticipation that came each time someone suggested a new scenario for his future.

“You’ve probably heard most of the popular opinions already,” he replied, as soberly as he could. “Some say the Jedi should function as an independent board of advisors, others want to see a new order in a serving capacity without too much power of its own.”

“And some conceive of the Jedi as an elite military force,” Ackbar complemented, frankly skeptical.

Luke nodded shortly. “I can’t think of it as an abstract project,” he tried to explain, “and I’m not a politician. I can only base my hopes for the future on my own experience. It’s for others to decide how Jedi abilities can be made a part of... government procedures.”

“Yet you and you alone,” the admiral emphasized, “should answer this question. You have fought long and hard for the Rebel Alliance, yet now your greatest responsibility is the rebuilding of the Jedi order.”

“But there is no new order,” Luke said bluntly. “Not yet. And there won’t be for a long time to come. There used to be thousands in the old Republic... I could give a lifetime to training new Jedi and still couldn’t hope to replace what has been lost.”

“And you are not prepared to teach others quite yet,” Ackbar hedged.

Though his gentle tone held no reproach, Luke felt an ambivalent sting from his own conscience. Was he that easy to read, had all his decisions come under constant scrutiny, decoded as portents of the future — a future that disclosed itself to him only in tantalizing, riddled fragments?

“I understand my responsibility,” he said. “And that also means that I need to learn as much as I can about the Jedi traditions, to avoid repeating mistakes.”

“Perhaps it is time to part with some cherished ideas,” Ackbar offered, “and acknowledge that none of us will live long enough to see a Republic made whole again, nor indeed a new Jedi order as its backbone. Perhaps we should concentrate on our present possibilities, limited as they are.”

 _That’s what we keep telling ourselves_ , Luke thought, even as he nodded, _because we have to. Because impossible dreams can eat us up, but if we let them go, we’ll make do with less than enough, and we’ll never know what we might have had_. An impasse. One that he’d faced over and over, the questionable legacy of relative peace. A dream shrunk to irrecognizable proportions.

Not for the first time, he wondered if modest ideals were still preferable to no ideals at all. Or if they served as a screen of comfortable delusions, absorbing all the daytime colors into fine shades of gray.

* * *

Come dusk, the city glittered like a trove of improbable pleasures, the portside district flaming into a concert of neon and cryogenic brilliance. As he made his way back to his own place, Luke felt immaterial fingers of light wander over his skin, then sweep on to paint gaudy camouflage patterns across cracked facades and shuttered shop fronts.

From a public transfer station poured motley drifts of tourists, commuters, businesspeople and the whole range of wary adventurers, charting new terrain for the chance of a lifetime. A buzz of languages surrounded him. Across the doorstep of a bar flowed moody mellophone notes, suggesting to anyone who cared to listen that there was ample reason to feel just like a stranger in your own life.

“Hey!” a shout flared in his direction. “Hey, Luke!”

He turned, guided by an exactness of perception that had become second nature, as dependable as his mental shields.

A striking purple cape peeled away from the crowd, billowing shortly in the breeze. Lando.

“Fancy seeing you here!” Lando raised a hand as if for a hearty shoulder clap, and at the last instant converted the motion into an airy gesture. “Looking for someone?”

Luke shook his head. “Just enjoying a walk.”

“And how’re you doing?” Dismissing the curt reply, Lando stuck to his easy-going tone. “Only got back here from my latest inspection tour. It’s been a long trip.”

“Successful, I hope.”

“Always.” Lando gathered his cape against the evening wind, drawing it across an understated dark outfit that suited business hours.

He’d relinquished his general’s commission almost as fast as it had been dropped on his shoulders, in favor of a low-profile post as commercial attaché. Yet journeys to the wild frontier of economical evolution agreed with Lando’s talent for eccentric private investments. Far better than any of them at splitting his attention between personal interests and political storm fronts, he’d acquired a look of prosperity and contentment.

“How about a drink?” he proposed, already searching the countless chromatic advertisements for some alluring offer. “The dispenser on that snazzy corvette gave out and left us all high and dry for the better part of the return flight. If you weren’t heading somewhere else, that is.”

“No, I’m off duty now,” Luke answered with a marginal smile. “Though maybe we can find a reasonably quiet place somewhere.”

“Sure thing.”

As they walked away from the teeming boulevard, Luke launched some inquiries about Lando’s trip, prompted by curiosity as much as an impulse to make up for his earlier lapse from courtesy.

They’d never exactly become friends, though to the casual observer Lando’s attitude would create a different impression. He kept up a cordial conversation with all the smoothness of a professional diplomat. Honest to himself, Luke didn’t doubt that genuine sympathy lived somewhere under Lando’s suave manner, and he vaguely regretted that he couldn’t return the sentiment as easily, as thoughtlessly as he should. After all this time.

Perhaps the circumstances leading to their acquaintance had left indelible tracks in his mind, too harsh to dissolve in less than two years. He’d never blamed Lando for his unwilling part in Vader’s ruthless maneuvers, but the memory always seemed closer in his presence. Or perhaps it was simply that Lando’s favorite pursuits remained alien to him.

“Here.” Lando stopped where a blue glow spilled lavishly across unmarked swing doors and steered Luke through the half-empty bar-room, towards a booth on the far side.

Before their orders arrived, Luke had already delivered an abridged account of the current state of affairs and the impending conference.

“Yeah, it sure would help to have the Mon Cal back as full members,” Lando said when he’d finished. “They’re good people.”

For a while he sat sloshing his drink around in the glass, as if contemplating the future in its random swirls. “Listen—” He leveled a speculative glance across the table. “You heard anything about Han recently?”

Caught off guard, Luke merely shook his head.

“And you really don’t know where he is?” Lando pursued. “I realize people tend to exaggerate, but I’ve heard all kinds of stories about the Jedi ways of... knowing things.”

Even though he’d never expected this from Lando, the sentiment had become all too familiar. Legends had long overgrown half-understood realities, and strangeness had given rise to fantasy. No matter where Luke’s missions took him, the first charge in every assignment was to establish what he could, and couldn’t do. The Force bore little resemblance to a magic wand.

“If you think I can predict the future,” he said, “read people’s minds and locate anyone in the galaxy just by concentrating on them, then you’re wrong.”

“Whoa, Luke, take it easy!” Startlement washed over Lando’s face before it was braced in good humor. “I don’t think you’re a wizard or anything. I just thought it might work that way when you’ve known somebody for a long time. Like... the connection you obviously have with Leia.”

His inquisitive look charged Luke with a subtle note of rivalry. A sentiment that could’ve been put to rest with a single truth.

 _She’s my sister_. A secret to be surrendered only at a staggering price, and for higher purposes.

“I know he’s alive.” It was all Luke could offer, if not explain. “But that’s all.”

“Well, that’s _something_.” Lando’s grin was tailored to reassure. “Something to keep us from worrying about that cussed fool of a Corellian.”

“He’s got Chewie to keep him out of the worst trouble,” Luke returned what he kept telling himself.

“Yeah, but still... I never thought we’d see him turn his back like that and run out on everything he had! Beats me, to think what got into him.”

“What he had wasn’t enough, obviously.” Try as he might to keep his tone neutral, the hard logic turned Luke’s throat quite dry.

“Not enough!” Lando took a long swig and downed some of his exasperation with it. When he looked up again, bafflement had won over every attempt to rationalize. “The past couple of years’ve changed Han, whether he likes it or not, and that’s why I just don’t get it,” he went on. “You didn’t know him before, but the Han Solo I used to hang out with lived by just one principle. Keep your own butt covered. And then, when he showed up on Bespin...” Lando shrugged, a bemused smile tugging his mouth. “Anybody ever tell you how he slugged me?”

The sudden swerve to reminiscence took Luke unprepared. “I don’t think so,” he said softly.

Lando’s glance veered past him, into memory. “I went down to the holding cell,” he started, faint discomfort stealing into his expression. “The situation was getting out of hand, and I ― well, I guess I was really just trying to make up my mind and decide what to do. Han was in bad shape...” Lando gestured sharply. “Anyway, I told him Vader wasn’t after him or Leia. I mentioned your name—”

“You _told_ him Vader was just using him as bait?” Luke cut in, chilled by the thought, irrational as that was. Had it made any difference for Han, to know he’d been tortured because of their friendship?

“More or less.” Lando didn’t meet his eyes. “Han got all fired up over that... got to his feet and took a swing at me.” Grimacing, Lando rubbed at his jaw, as if regrets still lodged there. “And that’s when it hit me. That he could get so worked up over somebody else’s problems. He always refused to worry about anything or anybody, except Chewie and the Falcon.”

“No, I didn’t realize.”

Luke’s fingers closed hard around the glass in front of him. _Han knew_ , the thought repeated itself, circling as if in search for its proper place. _They tortured him, froze him in carbonite, and he knew it happened because of me, and he never said anything_...

Strange, how a single scrap of knowledge could unsettle trusted convictions, uncover a gap in the familiar sequence of cause and effect. But there was no point in conjuring the past, and no point in wondering why Lando had chosen this moment to talk about the incident. For all Luke recalled, they’d never had a conversation like this.

“Yeah, and just when I thought Han was heading straight for a respectable life,” Lando concluded in a brisk tone, “he’s changed his mind again. I wonder what he’s doing these days.”

Before Luke could frame a rational theory, Lando dismissed his own question.

“Well, one thing’s for sure, he’ll be starhawkin’ in that battered old crate ‘til she finally falls apart.” Empty glass raised, he waved a new order at the serving droid. “Han could make a million credits, and he’d still be flying the Falcon.”

A sudden blare of music rolled through the bar-room, rattling infirm pieces of decoration before someone bore down on the volume.

“He’s in love with that ship,” Lando said over a ripple of electronic chords, his tone changing to conspiratorial. “Has been right from the moment he first saw her. I should’ve known better than to put her up for grabs in that game.”

Amusement flickered in his eyes and dispelled all the haunting shades of recollection. It was much like him, Luke reflected, to switch moods at will, almost without transition.

“Then why did you?” he asked, grateful that Lando’s attention had strayed to a more distant segment of the past.

“Man, I was so _sure_ he was bluffing, just for the hell of it...” Lando shook his head. “Han used to do that type of thing, where everybody else would’ve picked up their winnings and walked away.” His hand snapped open, releasing an imaginary treasure. “I was wrong. The devious bastard had a natural sabacc array. And you should’ve seen him when he claimed the Falcon! Whooping like a kid with his first ‘hopper, his whole face lighting up like she was the most beautiful thing in the universe. Never knew why that rickety old freighter meant so much to him.” Lando shrugged expressively. “The Falcon wasn’t what she is today, you know.”

Over his shoulder, Luke glanced into an array of memories, clear as holographs. Han sweating, laughing, cursing in the pilot’s seat while his hands spoke to the flight console. Uncounted hours that they’d spent in the close quarters of the Falcon’s crawlways, struggling to fix another malfunctioning piece of technical ingenuity under pressure. Han poring over tangles of circuitry and components with a puzzled intensity, as if tracing out a half-formed daydream.

The Falcon had been many things to him. Home, necessity, solid foundation of his independence, a guarantee for fast escapes. But more than that, with every new carbon score and patched-up hull plate, she’d become a mirror of the countless shifts and ruptures in his own life.

“Do you know where she got the name?” Luke asked. “Han never said anything about it, but I’ve wondered sometimes.”

“Yeah, it’s not exactly what leaps to mind when you look at her, is it? The _Millennium Falcon_...” Lando paused as the mechanical server trundled up, replacing his drained glass. “That’s what she was called when she came into my possession,” he continued, “and the guy who’d owned her before asked me not to change the name. He was kinda superstitious about it.”

“Well, you went along with it,” Luke pointed out.

“Right.” Lando grinned. “So maybe I’m a little superstitious myself. And this guy was Corellian. You know what they’re like. He made me swear on my mother’s life, my father’s grave, whatever...”

“And did he tell you why it meant so much to him?”

“No, he was very vague there.” Lando rubbed a finger over his moustache. “But I found out something about it later. The name goes back to some old Corellian prophecy, and a falcon plays an important part in it. Something about the end of times...” He frowned. “Sorry, can’t seem to recall anything more.”

 _The end of times_. Luke made a noncommittal noise and tried to ignore a graze of cold premonition.

“I’m talking too much,” Lando observed. “And what’s worse, I’m gettin’ sentimental about the bad old days. Must be gettin’ old, to quote a timeless saying from our absent friend.” He smoothed a hand over his hair with a rough chuckle. “It’s just that I ran into an old buddy when we stopped over on Ord Mantell, and he happened to ask about Han.”

So that was what had prompted the sudden swing through memory. One minor riddle solved, at least.

“It’s what we have to do sometimes. Remember.” Luke pulled up his shoulders. “And ask ourselves what we’re doing here, why we’re doing it.”

“Yeah, things’re getting more complicated by the day, that’s true.” Lando blew out an eloquent sigh and glanced down at his wrist-chrono. “Got an interesting date later tonight that I don’t wanna miss,” he said by ways of apology. “Another drink for you?”

Luke shook his head. “Somebody I know?”

“I’d be surprised if you did...”

Whether Lando’s secretive smile was intended to quench or rekindle sparks of competition, Luke refrained from further questions. He suspected that Lando still kept an eye out for Leia, biding his time, though of course he wouldn’t let other opportunities go to waste meanwhile. _Lando and Leia_...

There, Luke’s imagination refused to cooperate. Honest to himself, he still found it impossible to envision Leia with anyone except Han ― and surrender the security of their old triangle for good.

“How about you, you seeing anybody special?” Lando asked casually, as if they shared a long history of discussing private matters between them. “I’ve heard some hot gossip about you and the Selonian ambassador’s daughter.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that story myself,” Luke returned, managing a fair copy of a flippant tone. Lando couldn’t guess at the discomfort his remark had triggered like a battle reflex. He shrugged. “No, I’m not seeing anyone in particular.”

“And why should you, when you’ve got half the galaxy to choose from.” Lando slanted him a short glance, most likely wondering at the cause for his reticence. “You’ve got to be heading the current list of most wanted bachelors.”

It was inevitable, Luke supposed, that his celibate life made him the favorite object of gossip and public curiosity, though most people assumed that he merely obeyed the demands of the Force. Yet complete abstinence had never been the rule among the Jedi of the old order, even if some sources suggested that it had been common practice. For reasons Luke could understand all too well. And it provided him with a firm line of defense against well-meaning concern and intrusive rumor alike.

“It’s only a matter of time,” he said with deliberate ambivalence, offering a smile in afterthought. “Thanks for the drink, Lando.”

* * *

The blade of his lightsaber cut across his vision, arcing gracefully through a horizontal strike. Blazing in perfect silence, to lay an incision across his retina like a burning borderline.

When Luke opened his eyes, it was nothing but the first pale ribbon of dawn, spread out over the horizon from one side of the large window to the other. Instantly awake, he slid the sheet back and sat up, automatically reaching for his jumpsuit. The supple leather of a well-worn belt was cool under his fingers, yet the missing weight registered at once. His lightsaber was no longer in its place.

From the deeper shadows of the room, a soft scraping sound penetrated.

“Guess I let my guard slip, didn’t I?” A private smile bent Luke’s mouth. “I should’ve noticed you were sneaking up on me.”

A sequence of clucks and bleeps answered him, electronic equivalents of cheerful goading.

“Yes, of course I trust you, Artoo.” Without a glance over his shoulder, Luke climbed to his feet and pulled up the jumpsuit’s zippers.

He took the stairs in quick strides. Shielded on three sides by the windowless fronts of storage towers, the rooftop had become a refuge for his exercises and meditations. The morning air was crisp and bitter. Luke breathed deeply, his body poised as if for a dive into uncharted waters.

Without effort, he focused inner sight back into the twilight of his apartment, probing for a node of dormant energy that refracted and contained as much of his soul as any man-made device could. Thought closed around it, nudging atoms of air into a fleeting alignment that subverted mass and gravity. Carving a path from mere belief.

When he looked up, the cool hilt of the lightsaber filled his hand, fitting itself into his palm with a questioning tingle. Sometimes he felt that it called to him, with a pressure equal to volition.

Out of the stairwell, an approving whistle floated up and informed him of the time he’d needed to retrieve his weapon, exact to the last nanosecond.

“You mean I’m making progress?” Luke called and grinned at the little droid’s emphatic reply.

It had become one of Artoo’s favorite games when there was no time to take the X-wing through orbital rides. Luke craned his neck at the sky and watched the essence of night recede behind reluctant shades of blue. Flying was an old addiction, as liberating as these secluded hours around dawn. Both belonging to him like pulse and breath and the legacy of dreams that trailed through his nights.

Igniting the ‘saber, Luke moved through a warm-up routine, stretching muscles and tendons until a supple accord built and gathered momentum; advance, block, and parry recalling patterns of combat, of blades that grated together in a jarring song of defiance. Maybe someday he’d be fencing with a student, not an adversary. But the lightsaber was more than what Ben had once called it ― _an elegant weapon from a more civilized age_.

He wheeled, oxygen atoms sliding off the incandescent blade. The air around him jangling with ripples of energy. From Obi-Wan he’d learned to follow this solitary brilliance with his mind instead of his eyes. From Yoda that a Jedi’s lightsaber took its cause not from conquest and division but the power to join.

Mesmerized, his awareness slipped along the radiant beacon, an extension of the mind that propelled him outward, into the wind and the cloudless heights of morning.

On the far edge of conscious thought rose familiar demands like razorwire, shadowed fantasies locked in the trap and the promise of power. He tore through the meshes, wrested free of will and self. Through the moment’s disorientation, he reached for deliverance. _I am a part, I am in everything, I am nowhere_...

A ritual of surrender performed with unquestioned instinct, releasing him from loss and limit, from pride, past and necessity. Until he could feel the yielding in every whisper of nerve, and the bright, indifferent rhythms of the Force beat through him from body to soul.

...rushing, gliding, past the pollution of cities, the noise and technologies of survival, scattered across the empty regions of the northern sea. Torn out of his body ― a pale, dry shell in the tides of sand ― to be one with the daylight that pulsed through a dome of restless water. Diffusing energy, from the slow growth of coral reefs, the drift of seaweeds around nuclear-powered ships sunk centuries before, a slippery shadow between the scrimsharks, light filtered down to the dim universe of the plankton and the microbe. Then the hurtling ascent from clouded green density to white spray. Eyes of pearl, skin of silt, rocking with the slow, magnetic pull of conjunct moons. Joined to the constant transformation of energy into matter, on the dissolving edge where the rise and fall of life became one, and death was another barrier that could be broken.

Stillness, finally, a shiver of anticipation that passed through atomic waves of light, air and water. A great shadow fell over the wide open sea, and time crawled, froze...

 _Open your eyes_. Caught in a spell, tantalizing and electric like a memory. Until something responded with the pull of flesh and bone, back on a permacite rooftop.

A fierce thrill rushed him, slammed him backwards, and became the air that filled his lungs, condensing, expanding.

Breathing sharply, Luke found himself once more inside his own skin ― source, catalyst, conduit of infinite currents that defined and shaped the Force. Balancing two lives, two realities.

He laughed out loud, exhilarated from thoughtless exertion. He licked at his upper lip, tasting the salt of sweat and ocean breezes.

It was expected of him to rebuild the Jedi order, and difficult to explain what he’d accomplished through studies and meditations. But each time he gave himself over to the Force, he could feel comprehension grow, his senses playing through facets of time and meaning, until every muscle trembled with energy.

 _I’m learning about life, that’s all_.

Nothing but the wild joy of this freedom, rising above the gray tide of days. If Leia could share it just once, maybe it would change her mind. And did she know this longing, beyond the many layers of dedication and duty?

Luke deactivated the lightsaber, and the glassy morning air closed around him like a carapace. Sometimes the loneliness tore at him, an aching pressure just beneath the skin. To be so contained, and with each daybreak more aware of the gaps in the life that he owned. As if the Force whetted a hunger that still didn’t know its cause. An unrelieved knowledge, the price of this freedom.

When he turned back inside, Artoo guarded the black uniform, draped decorously over the back of a chair.

“I know,” Luke answered the droid’s warbled query, squaring his shoulders to the onset of another regimented day. “About time I got ready.”

He’d speak to the delegates at the conference today, and he could guess what their questions would be.

* * *

_I ain’t cut out for a life like that_ , Han’s voice echoed through his head as he strode down a flight of stairs at the back of the Guild House. _All those speeches served up only to dodge the real issues. All that pointless sparring while real people are takin’ the fall out there_...

Luke rolled his shoulders inside his formal jacket. He’d just lived through another example of the same — worse, he’d been paraded before the assembly like a mock target for shared hopes and old grudges — and frustration was dragging at him.

An imprecation slipped through his teeth when the stairs delivered him into a huddle of scaffolding, deactivated work-bee droids and paint buckets. The old Guild House was a maze, no exit signs anywhere, and it didn’t help that remodeling works were still in progress on most floors. Dust-sprinkled tarps rustled in a draft that wound through intersecting corridors. From somewhere on his right, the tap and scrape of mechanical tools drifted up, muffled through walls of natural stone that breathed out a decade’s coolness.

Luke started to walk towards those sounds, recalling the look Han had worn when he’d attended Council sessions after the disaster on Coruscant. The dazed and angry look of a man tied to a post someone else had picked for him. By now, Luke knew the feeling exactly.

Upstairs, in the room that’d once served as assembly chamber for the Navigators’ Guild, the talks continued, but he’d already played his part. Leia’s steel-edged charm would have to accomplish the rest, if the Sullustian ambassadors and the Bothan councilor didn’t trample down compromise in favor of flaunting their spit-shined importance. The Mon Cal were used to that, but the Corellians?

All at once, the muted dialogue of hammer and chisel stopped and left him at a loss for directions. Luke paused, his mind still tethered to the conference three floors above. He’d played his part, but he had no way of knowing to what effect — not yet.

Such a small circle, he kept thinking. Upstairs, they were debating the format of galactic justice and liberties beneath prismatic skylights that represented the seven planets and all their satellites in orbit around Corel Prime. Under the spray of refracted daylight, he’d delivered his address, ready to field questions that ranged out too far into the future. Lately, the why, how and wherefore of a new Jedi order had become a favorite bone of contention.

_What is it to you? What am I—?_

Voices flitting through his head, back and forth along familiar lines of dissent. _The Jedi watched over the integrity of the Republic, and yet it fell apart. How will we ensure that history does not repeat itself?_

This from Jan Dodonna, whose eyes used to grow misty with nostalgic reverence whenever someone mentioned the old Jedi order. But his voice had been pinched with skepticism today, echoed closely by General Madine. Madine, who’d always believed in unremitting chains of command to counter any chaos in the making. If the Jedi could return from presumed annihilation, so could the Sith Lords. Straight brows joined in a frown, he’d asked, _And who’s going to watch over the watchers?_

Even now, Luke bit back a swift sting of temper. _No one, if we don’t watch ourselves_ , he’d answered. _If the New Republic isn’t held together from within, no Jedi order can keep it from coming apart_.

The truth, voiced too bluntly perhaps, but the scintillant ideals that’d once glued the Rebel Alliance together had been worn down to a nub and now struck him as terribly vague. Sometimes he felt half guilty because he’d never stopped believing in them.

At the next intersection, a cold draft touched his face, and he turned towards it. All along the corridor, timber fittings had been pried off and stacked along the walls like firewood, but the cold air currents scoured the Guild House with a salty bite. Leia called this place the divided heart of Corellian independence. All Luke could see for the moment were stark walls and arches still waiting for a liberating sweep of color.

Somewhere ahead, protective covers snapped in the gusts. Luke followed the sound through a wide arch, and found himself facing another dead end. Instead of the foyer he’d expected, a high room of some fifty square meters opened before him. The outer wall was missing entirely, the ceiling held in place by iron struts. On the far side, the wind played with grimy tarps, and with every flutter, daylight lanced inward, picking out cracks in the brick-tiled floor.

Trapped by the Guild House that refused to let go of him. Luke leaned back against the arched doorway. Corellians, so the common opinion among the Noble Houses ran, were solid yet unpredictable allies, thriving on contradictions instead of trying to resolve them. True, Luke supposed with a small grin. At least it had been in Han’s case.

Some veterans of the Corellian resistance movement had been present at the conference too, and he’d felt their eyes on him — watchful, curious, sometimes half amused — while Dodonna, Madine and the Bothan Councilor Dregh’la traded arguments about the usefulness and the risks surrounding a new Jedi order. But only one of those fringe observers had finally spoken up. A shock of thick white hair gleaming when the old man rose towards the sharded light.

 _Up in the north_ , he’d said, _we still remember how some of our cities rebelled against Imperial conscription. Vader himself brought in the troops that overran half the province, and the result was a massacre_... The haunting pressure of recollection had roughened his voice, an awareness of too many broken lives mending out of shape.

The chill of it returned to the back of Luke’s neck. Old wrongs — and how many times had his father been involved? The list seemed near endless.

 _But the Sith Lords_ , the old man had continued, _are gone. If gone for good, no one can tell. I say we should be wary of any force that seeks to amass power. But we’ve grown used to knowing exactly where our enemy stands, and perhaps that’ll blind us to new dangers. Perhaps we should rely on the Jedi to warn us_.

Murmurs of agreement had stirred through the Mon Cal delegation, but it was Admiral Ackbar who’d voiced their response. _The defense of peace is never limited to periods of war. That is precisely why we need the Jedi in the absence of a clear enemy_.

Across the table, a long glance passed between him and the Corellian veteran. A tentative understanding. At that moment, Luke had caught the hight glint in Leia’s eyes, though she wasn’t looking his way.

 _I was trained to be the Jedi’s weapon against Vader_ , he’d replied, treading carefully between memories that lined up like jagged splinters. _But that was just the beginning. And in the end, it was Vader who turned against the Emperor_.

This much had become common knowledge since the battle of Endor, a scrap of unexplained information concealing a complex truth.

Luke pushed away from the door and walked into the unfinished room, his steps ringing uneven through the quiet. Would anyone in the assembly above have listened to Vader’s son, could they summon the patience to sift through the murkier shades of grey? And did Leia worry that someday he might tire of caution and give away their secret? Yet this secrecy kept the ghosts of the past at his shoulder, alive and restless with diffuse warnings.

 _The responsibility remains with the individual_ , he’d told the gathering. _There are many ways of using the Force, not just one or two. The Force itself won’t keep us safe from temptation and ambition_.

When he’d stepped back, Dodonna and Madine traded complacent looks. Neither the future of the Jedi nor his understanding of the Force had been at stake. Their sparring match had delivered the germs of an accord between the Corellians and the Mon Cal, and that was all that mattered.

 _I should be glad_ , Luke told himself. He’d played his part as a catalyst for lingering tensions, and for once, all those verbal maneuvers had served a good purpose.

He turned on his heel, ready to retrace his steps, when a sharp gust tore through the tarps and the room lit up with fine hues and delicate shadows where plaster and paint flaked off the walls. Faded colors mottled the scabby surface, evoking the furtive patterns of animal movement in a forest, of striped and speckled hides glimpsed only from the corner of an eye. Luke stepped closer, imagining the form of a hunting snowbear between winter-blackened trunks. All the walls had at one time been covered in frescoes, one layer on top of the other, turning the forest into a book of many brittle pages. The smells of wet plaster and chalk mingled with the morning scent of rain.

His eyes followed a line of dusky hills to the point where it merged through the silhouette of a tall figure with a washed-out face. A jotted constellation of stars from an ancient sky peeked through the man’s head. A chronicle spread before him in the dusty white of slaked lime, the burnt red of iron oxide, between the arms of huge painted trees. Creases and wrinkles of history like fine skin.

Luke glanced back over his shoulder, almost expecting to find someone watching him, but there was no one. On the far wall, a seascape rolled beneath a large, elaborately drawn star, surrounded by a mane of bright streamers. But at its center, a blot of dark brown seemed to smother the light from within. Luke wandered across, and from the fragments of painted sky emerged the outline of an aircraft. Recognition jogged his mind before all the pieces of the puzzle had fully assembled.

The pronged disk cruising the sky could have been a memory sketch of the Falcon, except for some details. Like those elongated bow mandibles, suggesting an ambition of stretching into wings. Beneath the ship, roily waves distorted its shadow to the ghost of a giant bird of prey.

 _Han would’ve loved to see this_ , he couldn’t help thinking.

“Good morning,” an unfamiliar baritone said from the doorway.

Luke curbed an instinctive start as if he’d been caught trespassing. He worked up a courteous smile. “Same to you. I’m Luke Skywalker.”

Brown eyes measured him incuriously. “Yes, I know.” The man inclined his head with a short, laconic grin. A clandestine touch of gray laced his hair. “Who wouldn’t, after all?”

He was tall and rangy and all too obviously Corellian, the characteristics revealing themselves in body language more than physiognomy. “Bran Teragk,” he offered, holding out his hand. “We haven’t been introduced yet.”

The name had appeared on a recent council memo, Luke recalled now. Teragk had been appointed head of Civilian Intelligence last month. After prolonged haggling between the responsible ministries, according to Leia.

“Commodore.” He shook the man’s hand. “Good to meet you.”

“You were looking at the murals,” Teragk observed. “The one over there in particular.”

“Do you know what it represents?”

“I’ve been told it was part of a cycle at one time.” The commodore cocked his head to slide a cursory glance across the fresco. “It goes back to an old legend about a disaster that will befall Corellia.”

“What kind of disaster?” Halfway through the question, the driftwood of another conversation bobbed through Luke’s mind. _A prophecy about the end of times_...

“If there’s anything to it, that would refer to Imperial occupation.” Teragk shrugged one shoulder, evidently disinclined to waste time with speculation.

“Well, what about this shape?” Luke’s hand traced the pronged outline without touching. “It looks like a stock light freighter. How old is this?”

“Predating spaceflight, I should think.” Teragk bent closer to assess the riddle. “But you’re right that it’s close to an YT-1300. Interesting. Our engineers must have drawn on older designs when they came up with this model.” He dismissed it with an easy smile. “We’re a conservative lot, in some ways.”

“What ways?” Luke asked as they turned back into the corridor.

“Too many, I suspect.” Teragk chuckled. “Memory is one of our passions. It’s not so obvious in the cities, but out in the country, people spend a lot of time memorizing everything. Genealogies. Old stories. Old wrongs, all the usual—”

He paused at an eruption of clanking noise from a passage on their left. Luke’s pace quickened with instant recognition. Threepio.

The protocol droid rounded the corner in a clatter, one golden arm rising for a stiff wave. “Master Luke! Princess Leia would like to see you. Lord Duscath of Sullust received an urgent transmission, and the session is adjourned until he returns.” He angled his torso backwards for a better look at Teragk. “The Princess waits in her office. If you will excuse us, sir?”

Teragk frowned at Threepio’s huffy tones. Perhaps uneasiness around droids was another typical Corellian trait. Luke checked his amusement at the brief face-off. “I’m sorry, Commodore,” he said. “We’ll talk another day.”

 

When he entered Leia’s office, a blast of noonlight framed her and glowed in the folds of her ornate robes. From the creaking ventilation unit rose a whiff of burned dust.

“What’s happening on Sullust?” Luke asked, already bracing for another emergency.

“Quite likely it’s only another minor intrigue at the court that caused this interruption.” Leia swung towards her desk without a hint of concern. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

“And the talks—”

“Went very well so far. Thanks to you.”

Irritation tightened Luke’s chest, and he couldn’t quench it, pointless as it was. “You set me up to avoid a confrontation between the Mon Cal and the Corellians,” he said. “The next time I’m supposed to play the punching ball, I’d like to know in advance.”

Leia touched his arm with a smile, half rueful and half placating. “There wasn’t any time. Dodonna approached me this morning...” She gestured him to a chair. “You’re no diplomat, Luke, but you impress people when you cut through to the basic truths they need to hear. If I’d handed you something like a script—”

“The whole effect would’ve been spoiled.” Luke breathed out sharply, ignored the chair and leaned back against her desk instead. He’d been expertly played for political gain, and not for the first time.

“Neither Dodonna nor Madine meant to attack you,” Leia explained, “they merely voiced what some of the Corellian leaders have been saying behind our backs for a while. Ackbar felt that this issue might be turned into a symbolic battlefield. We couldn’t let that happen.”

“Of course not.” Luke bit down on another start of stung pride. “Tell me what the Corellians have been saying.”

“Some of them worry that, quote, Force users are more trouble than they’re worth.” Annoyance tightened Leia’s voice momentarily. She stabbed at her desk console, rearranging printouts and datatapes with a brisk sweep of her free hand.

“They wonder what’s going to keep me from using the Force for my own purposes.” Luke crossed his arms. This room was one of the few places where he could let his shields slip without thought. “If I don’t work miracles, there’s disappointment, and if I do...” Too much or not enough: he’d navigated those straits since Endor, expending much energy on second-guessing everyone else as much as himself.

“There’s suspicion. Yes.” Leia stood with both hands braced against the console. “Nothing but time can prove them wrong,” she said with finality. “If there was anything I could do—”

“I know.” Luke turned his face into the spill of sunlight. “You think the Mon Cal delegation will recommend a return to full membership now?”

“I’m sure of it.” She walked around the desk, a hand lighting on his arm again. “Don’t look so unhappy. You did well.”

“I’m trying, Leia. I want this to work.” He realized how that must have sounded when her expression grew troubled. Too late.

“And you’ve had some marvelous successes, too,” Leia said with the full force of conviction. “The truce on Tyranda. The treaty with the Mid-Rim protectorates. None of that could have been achieved without you.”

Her arms slid around his waist, and she hugged him with a tenderness that grew almost painful on his senses, calling up diffuse needs for a different kind of comfort.

“Luke...” She stepped back, worry superseding unguarded warmth. “I know you don’t take as much pleasure from our work as I do. It doesn’t mean the same to you.”

Caught out by her perceptiveness, he found no other reaction than a helpless shrug.

“Your life should be more than what it is right now. I can tell how much you’re missing.”

“There’s the Force,” Luke stopped her.

Leia sighed, her eyes full of sympathy, resignation and doubt. “It isn’t me, is it?”

Sixteen months had passed since they’d learned about their kinship, and perhaps she’d wondered ever since. Bewildered and oddly amused, Luke shook his head. Some of the persistent gossip about his unrequited love for the Princess had filtered back to him, and he’d never done anything to discourage rumors that protected his privacy.

“No, it isn’t you,” he said. And yet she’d contributed to his isolation in another way, compelled by necessities neither of them could alter.

Sixteen months ago, while debris from the Death Star still rained down on the forests of Endor, they’d sealed their pact of secrecy. Vader’s children. And if Leia wasn’t ready to wear that truth on her sleeve, how could he demand it of her? They’d agreed not to tell the Council and spare the Rebel Alliance another difficult choice. Chances were, Leia had argued that night, that misgivings would erode too much of the faith needed to engineer a New Republic. And their lives could be torn up in the process. Luke drew in a careful breath, suddenly aching with memory.

“But?” Leia prompted.

“I promised Yoda to pass on what I’ve learned,” Luke told her once more. “I still think that I should start with you.”

“Please!” A touch of steel had entered her voice. “There will be others,” Leia added in a gentler tone. “Don’t let me hold you back. I’m not in the position to give my life over to the Force, and you know it.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Luke countered.

“Isn’t there?” Her glance slid past him, into the middle distance. “On Endor, I thought we’d all move on together, but now... Han is gone, and you—”

“I’m not going anywhere.” A quick step took Luke to the window overlooking streets that brimmed with dusty white heat. _This isn’t what I fought for_ , the thought crossed his mind as if it belonged to someone else. _I never have enough time_...

Just as Leia started to object, a nervous electronic whistle split the quiet, and she twisted around to activate the com panel on her desk. “Yes,” she snapped.

“There’s an urgent call for you from the Sullustian embassy, Your Highness,” Threepio’s voice announced. “Shall I put them through?”

“Go ahead.” With brisk movements, Leia tucked some loose strands back into her braid. “It’s only across the street,” she muttered, “but they have to use _holo_ transmissions...”

A dazzling swarm of pixels resolved into a quarter-sized visual above the console. Both Sullustian ambassadors nodded a solemn greeting in tandem, the taller of the pair a near-translucent wraith beside his heavy-jowled counterpart. Through all the permutations from agrarian to industrialized society, the symbiotic imbalance between their two races had remained intact. A small number of noble houses still combined ninety percent of Sullust’s wealth with undisputed power over the rest of the populace.

With a brief tug to her sleeves, Leia stepped into the transmission focus. “Lord Duscath, Ambassador Jumien.”

“Your Highness, I apologize for this intrusion,” Duscath began, his skin and hair so pale he could have been an albino. “Unfortunately, a communiqué from the Realm requires your instant attention.”

“How can I be of assistance?” Leia asked with glacial courtesy. Invisible for the two ambassadors, Luke quirked a sympathetic grin. The inseparable duo had a reputation for stealing everyone’s time with esoteric requests and complaints.

“A tragedy has occurred on Almansar trade station,” Duscath explained with uncharacteristic matter-of-factness. “Two of our merchant vessels were attacked in orbit, their entire crews murdered and their cargo destroyed.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Leia answered. “Please convey my condolences to the Ruling Heir.”

Luke could almost hear her mind engage with perplexed speculation. Almansar station lay well outside any of the territories affiliated with the New Republic.

“It is as we have long feared,” Duscath continued, an artful quiver of outrage in his voice. “Those impudent criminals have declared war on us, and their ambitions reach far beyond the Iridys sector. The syndicate will not stop until they control trade along all the major routes in the Outer Rim.”

“Pardon me for asking,” Leia cut in, “but are you sure that the syndicate is responsible for this attack?”

“Lamentably so, Your Highness.” Duscath glanced down his nose as if verifying data. “The perpetrators left a most callous message of warning. It is high time for the New Republic to take action.”

From his post by the window, Luke could see Leia’s back stiffen. “I understand your concerns,” she said. “I shall discuss the matter with our secret services. Please transfer all available information to Intell headquarters, and I will arrange a meeting as soon as possible.”

“Certainly...” Duscath’s jaw muscles worked, likely holding a flood of recommendations in check.

Throughout the exchange, Jumien had remained quiet and inert, except for rapid eye movements. “We are content to leave the matter in your capable hands, Princess,” he said now, concluding the conversation with a crisp bow.

“Thank you. Ambassadors.” Leia flicked off the holo projector and let out a long breath. “Mon Mothma won’t be happy to hear this when she gets back,” she said, sliding into her chair. “Antsy Sullustians are the last thing we need right now.”

“It’s within their rights to demand protection.” Luke pushed away from the windowsill to lay a hand on Leia’s shoulder.

“And we can’t just tell them sorry, it’s your own problem...” She swiveled her chair from side to side, thinking. “Let’s start by taking a look at Intell’s latest reports, shall we? I could use your help.”

* * *

It was late when Luke walked down one of the less frequented streets that meandered through the harbor district. A flurry of moths courted the halos of carbon arclights, but the wind had shifted and blew down softly from the wooded rises north of the city. Invading the streets with the hunting cries of marauder hawks and owls, the scents of oil and tar and, more distant, of freshly cut peat and heather that blossomed all over the high moors.

Luke tilted his head as the sounds and smells unraveled like colored threads out of a complex tapestry, uncertain how much of their definition was owed to the Force, and how much to recollection. All around him whispered the swamps of Dagobah, a whirr of countless insects like a wind without direction, stirred the forests of Endor with their giant shadows and a silky profusion of ferns. Sometimes the past was so much clearer in his mind than the present, curled between his thoughts with so many loose threads. So much left unfinished, undone.

 _He was our father, Leia. And he found his true self again before he died. He asked me to tell you_...

His steps broke into the city’s buzz of sleepless energy, jagged sounds like punctures in the skin of night. Through the cracks in the locktar cover snarled the bleached pavement of an older street.

_And now that you’ve told me, Luke, what now?_

The boxy shape of a binary truck lengthened its shadow to match the outline of memory. Became a pyre built from logs that still smoldered when they arrived on the clearing. But the black helmet, the mask, the intricate armor that’d kept their father’s body trapped and alive had melted down into gleaming slag that coated the timber. He’d brought Leia along as a witness, and because the logs’ slow burn encased him in protective heat and made it easier to feel all that still seethed inside him.

 _What now?_ Leia repeated. _I believe you, but who else will? And even if people accept that Vader turned back just before he died, will it matter to them? After all those years of savagery and merciless destruction? How many will see the father when they look at the son? This truth could destroy your life, if you make it public._

 _Our lives_ , was what she hadn’t said, but the risks of discovery bound them to each other as closely as kinship and affection. And she’d been right. No matter where Luke traveled after the Empire’s fall, Vader’s enforcement of galactic order had cut a trail of deadly arrogance, and the knowledge shaped his own responsibility like an iron mold. A truth meant to spell deliverance turning into a private cage.

Luke closed his eyes and breathed in traces of pine and ash. The long, strange night on Endor still encircled him. Every hour filled to bursting with the noise and energy of celebration, yet behind it, a vast, shapeless grief was waiting to unleash itself and collect its dues. Time to review their losses.

Past midnight, he’d sat on a broad limb on the edge of the Ewok village, mind still laboring to process the events of one day, when Han walked up to him out of the dark tangles, his boots muddy, pine needles caught in the crinkles of his long coat.

“Still high on adrenaline? You don’t look like you’re planning to go to bed tonight.” One corner of Han’s mouth tucked up in lazy mockery, at odds with the fatigue that lined his face.

“What about you? Where’ve you been?”

Han was dressed as if for a long hike. When he made himself comfortable in the curve of a thick branch, long legs dangling over the side, the flicker of a last bonfire caught something restless in his eyes. “I went to check out the Falcon. You should see what Lando’s done to my ship! The whole damn radar dish’s gone, and Chewie’s livid...”

With that preamble, they’d settled into idle talk, recaptured inconsequentials as if fishing for scraps of their real lives, the part that didn’t come under the dominion of galactic history. Secure in a cranny of night. Until Luke’s wandering attention caught on the circuitous routes of this conversation, the small evasions, the tense set of Han’s jaw. A sluggish drumbeat faltered somewhere at the center of the village like a dry wooden heartbeat. It occurred to him then that Han should be with Leia. Residual electricity crowded his body. He had to release Han from thinking that he owed him the comfort of his company.

He’d just drawn breath for some suitably casual remark when Han leaned forward. A filigree of shadows dipped over the side of his face.

“Look, there’s been so much going on,” he said. “Not sure I can figure through it all without some help. Like, where do we go from here?” Han raised his head, and the shadow pattern of leaves slid off his face. The stillness gathered momentum between them.

 _He’s ready to leave_ , Luke thought, tensing under the scrutiny of dark eyes that demanded his total attention. _He’s still going to leave us_.

The strangest sensation cramped his insides, like a sudden drop in gravity. All this time, they’d lived with the very realistic possibility of losing Han. And now, when he’d felt safe at last — “And you’re asking me?”

“What if I did?” Han’s glance flickered in the dimness, abruptly searching for a new focus.

Stable patterns went into flight, swirled around a core of stunned surprise. Anything seemed possible, all of a sudden.

 _Ask me? For what?_ Luke thought, the words tightening his stomach without a chance of making it past his throat. Instead, he’d answered with halting expressions of hope and confidence until the moment passed.

In hindsight, he supposed that Han had been struggling to make sense of too many riddles, chafing at the changes and decisions that excluded him, but he couldn’t have answered any differently. Leia had already revealed their kinship to Han, who should by rights hear the rest from her, too.

Luke cast a glance around to get his bearings. Behind the next corner, a casino’s holoscreen gushed out sprays of bright green and vermillion. But the memory was still so vivid that for a moment it felt as if this was the last he’d seen of Han, stalking off across the walkway like a sentinel until the dark folded over him. It was pointless to wonder if anything he might’ve said or done that night could have kept Han with them. Pointless, and arrogant to assume so much.

Luke swallowed against a sudden tightness in his throat. He’d made up his mind months ago. No matter the cost, he had to wait and respect Han’s freedom of choice. But here, on Corellia, the loss had started to twist like a splinter in an old injury.

He ran a hand under his shirt’s collar. The lingering heat of day hollowed the night and summoned flickers of sheet lightning to a distant sky. Further down the street, a late-night club released a group of young men into the sultry gloom. Two of them crossed the broken locktar, sauntering in a spill of blurry music as if all that surplus energy could bring down the rain.

As they passed him, Luke caught a peal of low, throaty laughter and a flash of teeth from brown skin that glowed with exuberance. The swing of their steps matched with negligent ease, arms thrown loosely around each other’s waist. When they’d disappeared, he looked up straight into the scalding brilliance of an arclight, but the image stayed with him. The brief illusion of night melting two silhouettes into one.

When he stepped under the shower, half an hour later, he could still see them, an emblem of closeness and a moment’s release from uncertainty.

* * *

The call from Intell headquarters, late the following afternoon, took him by surprise. Neither Military nor Civilian Intelligence had ever requested his assistance before, both branches working as close units, holed up within their own codes and professional suspicions.

Luke switched off the study screen and knuckled fatigue from his eyes. The truth was, he’d not been able to concentrate very well on the ancient Jedi treatise on cybernetics.

Leia had been right; he needed to take a look at himself and the New Republic from a clear distance, to tighten his focus on the future and his obligations to the Force. No immediate new assignment loomed right now to trim his time and absorb his energy. He’d already called Leia’s office, but she’d been busy working through the overflow from yesterday’s agenda. Maybe he could catch her in private after this meeting.

At headquarters, he followed a brass garland of identical door plaques to General Rieekan’s office. When he entered, Leia had buried her chin in her hands. At the back of the room, where star charts covered most of the wall, Commodore Teragk raised a glance from the file he was studying.

“Skywalker.” A brief smile erased some of the worry lines on Rieekan’s face. One year of running Military Intell and coordinating covert warfare had aged him visibly, corrupting the hair at his temples to a mottled gray. “Good of you to come. Her Highness tells me that you’re already fully informed about the situation with the Sullustians.”

That a minor disturbance had evolved into a _situation_ overnight spelled trouble in the diplomatic jargon.

Luke headed straight for a chair at the business end of Rieekan’s desk. “We studied all the information you’ve collected about the syndicate last night.”

“Then you know that what we have is preciously little,” Teragk said.

“The speed at which they’ve accumulated influence and resources is alarming,” Rieekan continued, “but unfortunately for us, their organization is also tightly shielded. For all our efforts, we haven’t managed to establish the location of their main base, if there is one, or the name of any individual crimelord in charge of this operation.”

“The Sullustians have registered a formal complaint this morning,” Leia explained at the puzzled look Luke sent her way. “Perhaps you’d like to see the warning they received.” She swung the readout screen towards him, and a few short lines brightened drowsily from muted silver.

BE MINDFUL OF YOUR HAZARD. THE TRADE STATIONS IN THIS SECTOR NO LONGER WELCOME YOUR PRESENCE. WE ADVISE YOU TO STAY WELL OUTSIDE DANGEROUS TERRITORY, UNLESS YOU WISH TO NEGOTIATE AN APPROPRIATE FEE FOR OUR PROTECTION.  
YOUR HUMBLE SERVANTS OF THE FALLOW STRAIN

“The Fallow Strain?” Luke sat back with a sense of missing something obvious.

“Yes, poetic, isn’t it?” Teragk extended a sardonic little smile. “It’s the first time they’ve identified themselves, though it might be an attempt to mislead us. Or simply a joke at our expense.”

“Except that the Sullustians were not amused.” Leia closed the file with a slap to the keypad. “If we don’t present a solution to this problem, they threaten to withdraw part of their fleet in order to protect their merchant navy in the Outer Rim.”

“And we cannot afford that.” Rieekan glanced down into the safety of notes and printouts spread across his desk. “The key, as always, is maximum information about our enemies’ activities. But unless we draw field agents off their assignments to the diverse Imperial contingents, we don’t have the properly trained personnel to infiltrate this syndiccate... and the Ministry of Defense would never authorize such a course of action.”

“In other words, our hands are tied,” Commodore Teragk translated.

Luke gave a short nod. Expectation built around him like a subtle rise in air pressure. “But you have an informer in the sector,” he put in. “Is he involved with the syndicate in any way?”

“We don’t know that for sure, but he seems to monitor their operations closely.” Teragk wandered over to the desk, hands clasped behind his back. “He has supplied us with very valuable information in the past. If he could profit from such an assignment, he might agree to play the part of an undercover agent for us.”

Discomfort slipped past Rieekan’s usual aplomb. The notion didn’t agree with him at all. “One of my staff members is scheduled to make contact with this informer on Dantooine in a few days,” he said. “We’ve agreed to use the opportunity and offer him a profitable deal...” He trailed off with a sidelong glance at Leia.

“We’re about to gamble on a wild card,” she spelled it out, “by trusting a stranger’s integrity. Regardless of how much we pay for his services, there is an undeniable risk that the syndicate might sway his loyalties with a more tempting offer. Luke...” She paused to capture his glance. “We’d like you to make contact with him. Find out if he’s willing to consider such an assignment, and if material benefits are his sole motivation.”

No longer surprised, Luke met her eyes squarely. “Why me?”

“You’ll be able to sense his intentions,” Leia answered. “His private aspirations and interests. We need to be reasonably sure that he doesn’t start feeding us distorted information midway.”

Her bluntness forced Luke back in his chair. Incredulity reached a cool hand up to the nape of his neck. Long before he’d realized how much the Force had heightened his perceptions, he’d picked up threads of sentiment and purpose from others, using them for guidance in much the same manner as well-versed diplomats read body language and facial expressions. Until his own privacy had been invaded, until a blighting knowledge had been driven into him and taught him full awareness of how he’d pried. Since then, he’d been careful to keep his shields raised at all times — for mutual protection. He’d thought that Leia understood as much.

And she did, he realized a moment later, when sympathy turned her glance away from him, and irritation pinched her face. She didn’t like it either.

“There are too many incalculable factors involved in this plan,” Leia concluded tersely, “but since we seem to have no other option, it’s all the more important to establish how far we can trust this person.”

“I understand.” Luke took a moment and another to consider all the implications with due sobriety. “But it can’t be done in a day. I’ll need time.” No matter the need and the pressure, he wasn’t going to rip into a stranger’s mind to dig up hidden truths.

Relief crossed Rieekan’s face like a passing thought.

“The Sullustians will have to give us the time,” Leia said resolutely. “I’ll take care of that.”

“Good.” Luke rose from his seat. “General. Commodore. I expect to hear from you about the briefing.”

In the corridor, thick carpeting swallowed every sound. He’d already reached the lift bank when he noticed Leia at the corner of his vision, a tense spring in her step.

“Threepio told me that you called my office earlier. You wanted to see me...”

“It can wait until I’m back.”

She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Sure? Are you okay with this?”

Her concern reached out to him like an impersonal courtesy, and he smiled at her, almost grateful for the distance between them.

“I’m fine, Leia.”

* * *

That night, he had a long, convoluted dream crowded with the shadows of people and events, but the only thing he remembered when he woke up was the large, floating shape in the sky. The shadow that fell over his face and trailed all the way down, across his limbs, like hot velvet. Urgent premonition pulsed through him as he sat up, shaking, out of a dream that had buried its meaning somewhere deep in his body.

He peeled the damp sheet off himself, the need to escape the closeness of his bed suddenly overwhelming. Only half-dressed, he climbed the stairs in darkness.

On the fourth side of his rooftop, a couple of gulls were nesting in the remains of a smokestack. Sometimes, when he was up early, he could see them emerge like white shadows before dawn, slipping out soundlessly in search of morning.

For the rest of this night, he sat in the salty breeze until the gulls woke, and he noticed for the first time how much effort went into each beat of their wide wings, the muscular movement of flight. He looked up, watching after them until their wings had grown thin as blades, pale scratches in a sky of glass, the first triumphant cry floating back down to him long after they’d vanished from sight.

* * * * *

**Author's Note:**

> First published as a standalone novel in 2001.


End file.
